Burning Leaves
by Rebel Don
Summary: Their entire lives had been nothing but an endless cycle of conflicts until finally it reached its head and war destroyed their homeland catapulting them into a new world. In the final hours of Konoha two shinobi were chosen to carry on the will of the fire into whatever land they found. As Konoha faded to ash they were its only remains, its final burning leaves.
1. Leaves burning on the wind

Leaves Burning in the Wind

A pair of calculating blue eyes looked down at a passing group of four Suna shinobi from their perch within the leaf shrouded treetops. They quickly flicked to the side and sent a wordless message to their obsidian counterparts before both their owners tensed and readied for the attack.

With only a pair of smoldering leaves drifting to the ground signaling their movement two forms vanished from the trees and crashed into the group of shinobi, ramming kunai into the vertebrae of two of them before they had a chance to retaliate. Immediately the other two shinobi spun around with their own kunai already drawn and prepared to face their attackers. They were momentarily shocked however when they saw that crouched behind their now dead comrades were two children that looked to be no older than eleven, each wearing the recognizable and terrifying armor of leaf ANBUs complete with masks and travel cloaks.

On the left, just wrenching his blade from his prey's neck and bringing his gaze up to meet theirs, was a boy whose only distinguishing features were his bright blond hair and the faint glint of his electric blue eyes behind his terrifying mask. Rather than the traditional white animal masks of Konoha ANBU the child's mask was forest green and held no distinguishing features save a grill where the mouth was and flame patterns on the edges that resembled a burnt leaf. In fact, were it not for the bright blue eyes glinting in the sun light it would have been impossible to tell where the eye holes on the mask even were. Similar to the mask the cloaks that they both wore were colored a dark forest green that got progressively darker the farther down it went before ending in a cinder and flame pattern that looked so real it almost seemed as though the cloak was really smoldering.

The second of the two had already let his kill drop to the ground in a bloodied heap when he turned to face them and was revealed to be a carbon copy of the other child expect rather than blond hair and blue eyes this child had raven locks and his eyes held the telltale crimson glow of an Uchiha Sharingan.

In the half second it took for their comrade's bodies to fall the two shinobi knew who they were standing before and they immediately tried to flee, but faster than the seasoned killers could react the two in front of them began weaving seals at a blinding pace before finishing on the snake and tiger seals respectively.

"**Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu!**"

"**Fūton: Daitoppa!**"

As the combined firestorm of an Uchiha fireball supercharged with hurricane force winds crashed into their forms and burned their flesh to a brittle crisp the two chunin were left with only a single fleeting thought before their lives ended.

_Moeha no Konoha…._

XxX

Naruto Uzumaki glanced at the blackened skeletons in front of him as he lowered his hands and turned towards his longtime partner and friend Sasuke Uchiha, who still had a faint trail of fire coming from the grill of his mask. "Oi teme, we should get moving. That was the fourth squad we've run into on this route and all of them were headed for the village. I'm worried something big is happening." Naruto said in a deep warbled voice, altered thanks to the seals on his mask.

Sasuke simply grunted an affirmation as his Sharingan faded away leaving his eyes their usual obsidian, before quickly ripping the kunai and shuriken pouches off of the two un-burned enemies and tossing half to Naruto. "I know dobe, I've got the same feeling, but we're only about half an hour away at top speed so we'll know soon enough. Next time we hit a squad we shouldn't circle ahead of them and set up an ambush though. It will be faster to run them down on the path from behind."

Naruto snorted at Sasuke's bravado while he sealed the ammo he had tossed him. "Fine but don't expect me to pull your ass out of the fire if the next group we run into is something tougher than four bed wetting Suna Chunin." With that the two of them vanished from sight leaving two burnt leaves in their wake as they blurred through the tree tops jumping from branch to branch.

Actions like the ones they had just performed were commonplace for Naruto and Sasuke and had been so for the last five years of their lives, ever since they had become active duty shinobi for Konohagakure no Sato almost every day of their lives had been filled with either combat missions or training of some kind. It didn't help that they were born into what was being hailed as the most violent chapter of shinobi history, and were currently part of the fourth and bloodiest Shinobi World War that had ever been seen.

For the last eight years the all of the known world had been engaged in a brutal conflict that had resulted from a failed power grab on the part of Iwa following the Kyuubi attack in Konoha and subsequent loss of the village's legendary Yondaime Hokage forcing the retired Sandaime back into action. Iwa repeated its initial strategy from the Third Shinobi World War and moved troops into the Land of Grass to begin staging hit and run raids against the northwestern border of the Land of Fire. For the two years that followed no actual casualties occurred on either side and so a formal declaration of war was not made however this changed when Iwa formally conquered and annexed the Land of Grass thus placing its border directly next to the Land of Fire. In response to the aggressive move and the tension that had been building up for years the Hokage of Konoha declared war on Iwa and opened the offensive up with a six month campaign that retook the Land of Grass back from Iwa. The war truly began when evidence was brought to international light about the use of Iwa prisoners as experimental test subjects by Orochimaru of the Sannin being approved by the normally soft hearted Sandaime Hokage. This sparked outrage among the lands of Kumo, Suna and Kiri which prompted Kumo to begin raiding the north eastern border of the Land of fire and caused Suna begin hitting Konoha from the west while Kiri started a coastal raiding campaign in the southeast. Suddenly Konoha's military had to be stretched across every inch of its border while trying to maintain an offensive into Iwa which quickly broke down once a four way alliance was formed and Iwa received reinforcements from Suna and Kumo, allowing them to reconquer the land of Grass.

The pattern of losses continued for the next year and a half until the nature of the war itself changed after Jiraiya and Tsunade of the Sannin both returned to Konoha and began to help push back the enemy on all four fronts. As a result of this Iwa made a complete change to their combat doctrine which they debuted in a massive terrorist style bombing mission that leveled half of Konoha and caused the deaths of countless people. Among the dead was a huge chunk of the Uchiha clan including Sasuke's parents and a great number of civilian shopkeepers, most notable in Naruto's mind being Teuchi and Ayame Nazashi, the only two people in the village who were ever kind to the orphaned Naruto and the only ones he viewed as family.

Following the bombing both Naruto and Sasuke immediately joined the academy at age five and resolved to become the most powerful shinobi they could possibly be in order so stop anyone else they cared about from dying. Naruto and Sasuke poured themselves into their studies were able to graduate in a record shattering six months before each being placed under the direct tutelage of Jiraiya and Orochimaru of the Sannin respectively.

From there five more years of war molded the young boys from insignificant gennin into the most feared and brutal ANBU unit in Konoha's history and one that had even been considered worthy of being the next generation of Sannin, though that was before the incident just two years ago…

"Oi Naruto hold up for a second, do you smell something?" Naruto roused himself from his thoughts and saw his partner crouched down on a branch, glancing around and sniffing as though he might be able to smell something through his mask.

Naruto smirked for a moment before he tapped a tattoo on his left shoulder and the mask on his face vanished in a puff of smoke revealing his childish whisker mark clad face for all to see. "Smelling things works best without the mask on teme. I made the filter seal to keep shit out not let stuff in."

Sasuke hmphed in annoyance before sealing his own mask away and revealing his slightly narrow face "I know that dobe I asked because your nose is almost as good and an Inuzuka's. Now stop bitching and tell me what you smell."

Naruto ignored the jab a took a deep whiff of the surrounding air and was startled when his nostrils were assaulted with the stink of fires, ash, burnt earth, and the faintest hints of ozone, the telltale scents of a shinobi battle. "I smell a fight going on, at least lightning and fire involved but there may be earth manipulation too. From the strength of it we must be really close by, how far is it to the village?"

"We're only about eight clicks out now, something must be going on for there to be a battle like that happening so close to the village." Sasuke looked around them until he saw a particularly large tree to their left. "Hang on I'm going to go up there and get a better look."

Naruto nodded an affirmative as Sasuke dashed towards the tree and ran vertically up its trunk without slowing in the least while Naruto remained in the branch canopy of the shorter trees, eyes scanning for any potential dangers. Only a moment later however Naruto saw Sasuke shoot down the tree and rocket off towards the village at top speed leaving Naruto confused for a moment before he raced after him. "Oi Teme what the hell did you see? Give me a damm sitrep for Kami's sake!"

As soon as Naruto caught back up to him Sasuke turned his head away from him and barely whispered "You didn't smell a small battle nearby." He said as he abruptly came to a stop on a large tree branch that gave them a clear view of the landscape that stood just a hundred meters away "You were smelling a massive battle at home."

Before them stood Konohagakure no Sato the largest, and until this moment, single strongest shinobi village in the known world. It was a fairly active city, keeping the title village only for tradition and was built within the confines of a massive seventy meter high wall that went in a two kilometer radius circle originating from the edges of a cliff that overlooked the entire village and going right up against the great forest around the village. The Cliffside which held massive sculptures depicting the faces of the villages past and current Hokages and the massive forest that stretched on for hundreds of kilometers around Konoha, having been grown single handedly by the Shodaime Hokage himself using his legendary Mokuton Jutsus, were the crown jewels of Konoha and showed the world the village's strength and majesty. There was an issue however…

They were burning.

The mighty cliffs of Konoha were ablaze, the faces of the past Hokages weeping tears of red hot fire, and where once the forest would have almost touched the great walls of the village now there was a charred ashen wasteland stretching out from the walls for a good two kilometers in all directions. And filling every single inch of that new found space was a veritable ocean of tens of thousands of Shinobi appearing less as individuals and more as an undulating mass of bodies, each wearing marks from various villages and hurling jutsu after jutsu towards the slowly falling city. Peppered among the shinobi were massive siege engines from the second Shinobi World War that fired huge exploding balls filled with scraps of metal in order to eviscerate enemies along with gargantuan shuriken launchers that threw shuriken the size of houses for kilometers at a time.

Naruto felt his mind start to shut down more and more as every volley of enemy fire sailed into the city and no doubt earned cries of agony and pain from the rseidents. This was the kind of situation they could have never even dreamed of, the idea that after all of the counter espionage, anti-infiltration and detection seals the village had spent the whole war perfecting its final battle would come down a feudal style siege was completely unthinkable. This was the kind of situation they had absolutely no contingency for and that thought alone almost made Naruto's heart give out.

The feeling lasted for only a moment however and soon Naruto remembered that as an ANBU he had a duty to his village in these exact situations. Steeling himself for the fight ahead Naruto was pleased to see that the resigned aura Sasuke had when he brought him here had been replaced with the icy cold fury that ANBU operatives were known for. Locking eyes for only a moment the two nodded and in perfect harmony tapped the seals on their shoulders before their masks appeared in their hands. Without a word the two slid them over their faces and felt the familiar sensation of the various HUD and Filter seals taking effect as they readied themselves for what they had to do next. As ANBU operatives within a crisis 1 scenario their first priority was to find their CO which considering their rank and who they were left only the supreme ANBU commander, the Sannin or the Hokage. If they couldn't find them then protocol demanded that they take the field and lead the troops themselves in whatever capacity they were able.

Before all of that however the two of them had to carve a path through the two kilometer thick horde of soldiers that stood between them and their home. Luckily for the two of them they had retained element of surprise and as they tapped the tattoo seal on their shoulder once more they were each holding a pair of connected six inch wide three foot long cylinders that were marked on the outside with the Kanji for demolition which they fastened to their backs. The cylinders were all black and nondescript except for the bottom outside edge of each side of the cylinders which had a small piece of paper sticking out of it.

Seeing each other all set the two readied themselves before jumping off of the branch and falling towards to the last band of forest between them and their enemies. As soon as their feet touched the ground the two exploded forward in a burst of speed that caused the ground itself to crater and give way. With a single push the two had already cleared the last band of forest and entered the charred coverless wasteland that the enemy was using to stage their attack. In the second and a half it took to clear the open area only two enemies had the good, or rather bad, fortune to turn around and see the two black clad specters barreling towards them, but before they could even utter a word of warning Naruto hurled two kunai that impacted their temples and Sasuke's hands flashed to the paper tags on his left and right pack before pulling them out as more tags took its place. Before the men's bodies could even hit the floor the two passed them and Sasuke placed the tags on their chests before he began rapidly doing the same to every single enemy in arms reach while Naruto copied him.

It took a while for anyone to realize that the blurs racing past them were actually enemies given the fact that they weren't attacking but as soon as some of the enemies began to try and block their advance Naruto stopped placing tags for a split second and held his fingers in a cross shape.

"**Kage Bushin no Jutsu****"**!

There was a puff of smoke next to Naruto and all of the sudden an exact copy of him was running alongside him. Nodding towards the clone Naruto resumed placing tags on things as the clone held its hand in the snake seal and channeled a bit of chakra into it before vanishing in a puff of smoke.

Back at the outer edge of the enemy formation in the midst of the confusion about the sudden attack and the two fatalities that resulted a mysterious hissing sound became audible to everyone in earshot. It only remained a mystery for a second however before one of the shinobi lifted up his arm and saw a sizzling explosive tag stuck to his ribs and had only enough time to think a single thought before his world went white.

'Fuck me…'

In a wide column from the western edge of the enemy formation and slowly working its way inwards was a series of explosions that was claiming the lives of anyone unfortunate enough to be stuck with or nearby the endless stream of explosive tags that were being laid by the two Konoha shinobi. Naruto had even began wrapping his kunai with the seals and hurling them to the left and right at a break neck pace as he ran, taking advantage of the fact the in their current siege formation the enemy had no room to avoid the explosions.

Soon enough the two of them were within two hundred meters of the village walls and so they removed their packs before priming the tags still in the dispensers and dropping them as they ran forward. Just as Naruto and Sasuke were about to enter the kill zone near the wall, and just as a female Kumo jonin looked at them and realized they were with Konoha a massive earth shattering explosion knocked everyone who didn't expect it off of their feet and left a hundred meter wide crate in the middle of the enemy formation. Naruto and Sasuke however simply kept running, past the confused and reeling attackers and right up to the base of the wall around Konoha.

The wall of Konoha itself was the last line of defense it had against an attacking force like this and it was ironically the only defensive measure the village had that was actually made for the kind of one army vs another combat they were experiencing right now. Like the forest around the village it too was built by the Shodaime Hogake using his wood style techniques, however unlike the forest it was also reinforced with a vast array of seals that had been developed by the Uzumaki clan, most notable being a complex strengthening array to make the wood of the walls harder than steel and a chakra dispersal seal that prevented enemies from running up the wall like a common tree.

Such things weren't an issue for Naruto and Sasuke however and as the two ran towards it a faint pulse was felt from the tattoo on their shoulders before they ran straight up the wall as they would have any other surface.

When they arrived at the top of the wall and landed on it in a crouch the two of them were greeted by the star stuck faces of various genin and chunin who were crouched behind the battlements as they watched the carnage wrought by the two before them who at that moment looked less like ANBU operatives and more like twin angels of war and death.

They were called out of their star struck fantasies however when the dark haired one spoke to them without turning around to face them, his voice coming out gravely and deep as it was warped by the seals on his mask. "Where is Hokage-sama?"

All of the shinobi seemed tongue tied for a moment before one woman managed to speak up. "U…Um excuse me ANBU-samas but are you two by chance the ANBU team Moeha?" she said before yelping and pulling herself and two men next to her to the floor as a fire ball sailed past her head and blew one of the other men into pieces.

The two children stood straight up completely ignoring the various fireballs and kunai that were flying by them as they turned and marched up to the battlements the Konoha shinobi were hiding behind. They then began weaving a flurry of hand sings before finishing on the dog seal and both barfing up streams of mud that they then slammed their hands into.

"**Doton: Doryūheki!**"

"**Doton: Doryūheki!**"

Instantly a rock wall grew out of the combined puddles of mud and continued growing until it was roughly ten meters high and over a meter thick completely shielding the group of shinobi and spreading along the wall for a good fifty meters to the left and right. The group looked on in awe and appreciation at their heroes as they turned away from the wall to face them and the blond spoke. "There, that oughta hold long enough for us to talk. Yes we are team Moeha and we need to report to Hokage-sama so if you could tell us where he is we would appreciate it."

The woman who had spoken up first, and who appeared to be the squad leader given her actions earlier, widened her eyes when she heard who they were and stood up and saluted the two, an action that the rest of her squad emulated. "Moeha-samas, Jonin Uroko Kuruma registration number 011362, my squad and all other soldiers along the wall have been ordered to inform you that Hokage-sama is leading the defense of the gate but the two of you are to report to Orochimaru- sama and Jiraiya-sama on the roof of the academy."

Naruto looked at her skeptically for a moment and turned towards Sasuke and received a nod of acceptance before he nodded himself and turned back to the squad. "Understood thanks for informing us, here" He held his hands in a cross seal and suddenly twenty more Narutos appeared on the wall. "these guys will help you and the rest of the defenders on the wall. They're yours to command, use them well Kurama-san, I'm sure you and your subordinates will make it throu..." before he could continue however a massive explosion from the south drew his attention and he saw the massive gate doors blown to pieces and felt a tremendous chakra signature fade away.

Naruto and Sasuke immediately made to head towards the rabidly ensuing bloodbath but they felt hands on their shoulders and saw Uroko and one of the other shinobi looking at them and shaking their heads. "You two have a job to do sirs. As the perimeter defense force our duty is to ensure no one get past these walls and it's a duty that we are more than ready to die for. Both of you need to get to the academy and find Orochimaru-sama and Jiraiya-sama before it's too late.

The two boys looked towards the former gates and saw the rapidly eroding defensive line now that the enemy's numbers came into play before shutting their eyes and turning away from it. They steeled their resolve and nodded back to the squad then jumped from the wall and headed for the academy

XxX

A man with a massive billowing mane of white hair stood atop the roof of the Konoha shinobi academy and stared at the intricate seal matrix on the arch front of him, his brows furrowed as he again checked for even the slightest error he might have made when writing it. The arch's frame was elegantly twisting and rolling white stone that formed shapes and swirls that seemed far more organic than mineral and dancing alongside each ridge and swirl was blood red ink. The man rubbed his slate grey eyes with his thumbs and subconsciously let them trail down the red tattoos he had that ran the length of his both sides of his face and wrapping around his wide chin before he went back to double checking his work, until something else drew his attention.

A chunin with a large scroll strapped to his back came through the stairway door and ran up to the man as more shinobi followed behind him. Each carrying armfuls of scrolls and papers. "Jiraiya-sama we have the last of the scrolls from the library and the forbidden sealing scroll. Where would you like them?"

Jiraiya let loose a sigh of relief and pointed behind him to the other side of the roof where a pale skinned man with long black hair and yellow snake like eyes was seen directing dozens of shinobi as they all sealed various items into scrolls laid all across the ground. "Ask Orochimaru he's the one organizing the scrolls. After you're done come back here all right I have a few special supplies I want to…" he was stopped however as an explosion to the south claimed his attention and he saw the gates to the village vanish in an explosion. He huffed in annoyance and ran to the south edge of the building and bit his thumb before immediately flashing through a set of hand seals, as the dark haired man did the same next to him.

"The rest of you all get everything sealed like I was showing you and prepare the defenses around this place. Under no circumstance are we to lose this rooftop understood?" The dark haired man commanded in a powerful and unnerving voice.

"HAI OROCHIMARU-SAMA!" the shinobi all yelled as they doubled their pace and frantically ran between the various scrolls laid out before them.

The dark haired man know known as Orochimaru simply huffed as he and jiraiya finished their seals and slammed both of their palms onto the roof as seal arrays spread from them.

"**Kuchiyose no Jutsu**"

"**Kuchiyose no Jutsu**"

Where the seals had been a moment ago there were now two wizened looking humanoid toads wearing cloaks one purple the other green and two white cobras that were roughly three feet long.

The two toads jumped up onto Jiraiya's shoulders before seemingly fusing to them as the green one spoke up. "We won't waste time with semantics right now boy, we know the end game when we see it, so you worry about getting ready and we'll start soaking up natural energy for ya."

Likewise the cobras had already slithered up Orochimaru's leg and proceeded to wrapped themselves around his neck like a pair of scarfs with their head resting on each side. "Assssss will we Orochimaru-kun. Make sure you don't dishonor our people by dying too quickly would you. It would be a shame for the last Konoha snake summoner to be known as a worthless weakling" the left one hissed sarcastically before both their bodies seemingly melted into and fused with Orochimaru's leaving only their heads and a foot of their necks free.

Jiraiya nodded resolutely at his summons words while Orochimaru simply snickered and the two of them stood for another moment as their sage modes took effect.

Jiraiya was the first to see any noticeable change as his eyes gained prominent red pigment all around them in large triangles that went to the bottom of his face and his nose swelled up while also becoming extremely warty. His pupils then shifted from those of a normal human to the horizontal bars of a toad and a full goatee sprouted from his chin. Finally all of his skin took on the texture of a toads and his hands and feet shifted and morphed, becoming longer and webbed completing the toad form he had gained.

Orochimaru's transformation didn't show results as rapidly, mostly due to the fact that his eyes were already slits, but soon one could see the whites of his eyes give way to black and noticed the faint purple tattoos around his eyes becoming darker and more pronounced before spreading down either side of his nose and meeting at his chin. Within his mouth his canines began shifting and changing until they had transformed into monstrous fangs and his tongue forked itself. Then four bone white horns spouted from his head and jutted backwards, two long ones on top and two shorter ones beneath on each side. Finally claws grew on his hands and the entirety of his skin sloughed off in a wet heap to reveal glistening white scales beneath.

The various shniobi that had been running errands and preparing seal all had to fight the urge to stop and look at the living legends that stood before them in all of their glory.

Jiraiya the Toad Sage of Konoha, master of hundreds of jutsu, vanquisher of countless enemies and unparalleled expert in the arts of seals, wars, and melodrama. Had the moment been a little lighter they were almost all certain he would have don't some kind of dance to lighten the mood and lift their spirits but now wasn't the time nor would have such an action gone over well with the man at his side.

Orochimaru the Snake sage of Konoha, was everything Jiraiya was only with an added helping of viciousness and efficiency. The snake sage was the village's embodiment of its willingness to abandon everything if it meant protecting its citizens and no one had surrendered more of themselves for the village than the man before them.

Orochimaru looked towards the gate and scrutinized the advancing horde of enemies with a critical eye. "So what's the plan Jiraiya-kun do you want to take the field now or try and wait for our students a little longer? You should know that if we aren't here when they arrive they will undoubtedly enter the fray and from there they'd sooner die than retreat."

Jiraiya closed his eyes and sighed in exhaustion at the situation before he opened them and looked ahead. "Until we receive the last piece of this jutsu from Itachi and the boys get here there isn't really anything we can do to be honest. Hopefully they will all get here soon and we can send them off before focusing all of our attention on the" he gestured with his hand at the rapidly burning city "situation at hand. For now we can wait a bit more, given how they have been handling things so far I doubt they will go for a knockout blow, rather they will try and encircle this place and fill all of the city with their soldiers."

Orochimaru smiled as he listened to his longtime friend and watched as the enemy soldiers did exactly as Jiraiya had had said they would. "Well well Jiraiya-kun I must say, your tactical acumen has really improved. It's hard to believe even they would be so arrogant as to storm a shinobi village like it was a common hamlet."

Jiraiya turned his eyes low at that sentence. "They're arrogance was what we counted on. Sensei took the suicide position outside the gate specifically so they would get enough of a moral boost to run in here like children. By the way did you get everything you wanted to sealed away?"

Orochimaru nodded "Yes, I got the sword sealed away along with all of my personal effect and his. What about you? I see that you put that moronic headband of yours in there."

Jiraiya's eyebrow twitched slightly as he turned towards Orochimaru "Stow it mister 'I use my gullet as a sheath' my headband was amazing."

While the two of them were talking two dark green forms blurred into sight behind them, one with a spiky mop of blond hair and the other with a mess of black. They two boys promptly tapped their shoulder tattoos and with a puff of smoke the masks that had hid their faces from their masters vanished.

The blond one stood up and widened his eyes when he saw the state the two men were in and approached Jiraiya. "Sensei we just returned from our mission please give us a sitrep. The fact that you both look like that must mean you're planning something huge."

Jiraiya sighed put a hand on his apprentice's shoulder and looked down at the blue eyes of his, eyes that despite being known the world over for their cold calculating ferocity now held a heartbreaking amount of childlike fear and confusion. "I'm not going to dance around the issue with either of you two, you're too mature for that kind of bull shit and it would be disrespectful to you. In a nutshell, Konoha is currently in her endgame, that means our strategies are shifting from tide turning to casualty causing and it means no one is thinking about tomorrow anymore got it. The civilians had already been evacuated and defenses and traps were laid. The actual siege started last night but we had known it was coming for a week. Sadly though we didn't have the means to head it off or anywhere to go if we tried to flee and the enemy stopped keeping prisoners alive last year so it was decided that we would make this battle the swan song of Konoha. We managed to jury rig some old world toys in the village and once the enemy fills the village with their troops we'll detonate the entire place and hopefully land an irreparable blow to our enemies that they will feel for the rest of time."

Naruto and Sasuke digested the information slowly and looked at their two senseis for a moment while it all sank in. Yes things had been going south for a while and yes Konoha hadn't won a major battle in the last two years, but on most missions Naruto and Sasuke went on they hand managed to complete their objective and cause significant casualties for their enemies. So the fact that their foes could field such a force was simply unbelievable.

Orochimaru look at the two boys in thought and decided to speak up. "The enemy has had an exponentially larger pool of soldiers to pull from than we do. Not only that they brought siege equipment so they could conscript civilians to operate them. Like it or not shinobi wars are won by how many towns you can pull recruits from and how long you can last. Truthfully we lost the capacity to win this war the moment we lost the outer territories of the Land of Fire." Hearing this the two boys deflated even more until Jiraiya knelt down in front of them.

"None of that matters right now though because there is one last part of our plan that I didn't explain yet. In fact it's the only part of the plan that actually matters and it has to do with the scrolls on the ground, that archway over there and you two. You see, as soon and your brother arrives Sasuke we'll be able to activate a jutsu that will bore a hole in space-time to another land. Somewhere were the enemy will never be able to go and where the legacy of the hidden leaf can live on."

The two boys looked up at their senseis before a question pooped into their minds which Sasuke asked first. "What does that have to do with us?"

Orochimaru turned towards them and, in an act of familiarity and compassion that looked completely alien on him, knelt in front of Sasuke before putting a hand on his shoulder. "That much should be obvious my young apprentice…you two are the legacy of this village. You embody the village's will of fire better than any other shinobis and despite your youth both of you are immensely powerful. Not only that, each of you has a sharp and inquisitive mind that show tremendous promise to grow and learn in the future, which is why we and the rest of the village are willing to put our faith in you to carry on our memories." Orochimaru said before standing up and talking to some shinobi about a scroll or somesuch while Jiraiya went over to the arch he mentioned and began inspecting it leaving Sasuke and Naruto to stew in what they had just heard.

Their senseis and the entire village were about to sacrifice themselves just so the two of them could avoid dying in the battle that was raging on all around them. The guilt it filled them with was only overcome by the sheer powerlessness that came with this whole kami-dammed situation they were in. They really didn't have an option to act brave and let the village not die for them, since everyone was going to die anyway, and jumping down and fighting to the death would only cost them their lives and still change nothing. For the first time in two years their minds were filled with flashes of their own failures and weaknesses, moments that could have been changed and steps that could have been avoided. And all throughout their memories a head of pink hair was visible…

"What do you mean he's dead?!" Orochimaru screamed causing the boys halt their thoughts and look over at him only to see him shouting and an adult ANBU operative in a cat like mask with light purple hair while two other ANBUs carried a large mirror over to the archway which fit inside of it perfectly.

"It as I said Orochimaru-sama, Itachi-ku… I mean Itachi-taicho has perished." She said quietly enough that only she and Orochimaru could hear "We were being pursued by the Kazekage and his puppet corps and he stayed behind to hold the enemy off while I went ahead with the package. Normally I would be sure he was still there fighting, but he was adamant about… about ensuring his little brother receive an additional special gift from him." She said as she handed Orochimaru a scroll and a palm sized box that he opened before quickly closing it and sighing.

"I see. He died a hero then and his memory will never fade. Get the package to Jiraiya and start finishing the gate, I'm going to get the last of the sealing scrolls put away." Orochimaru said before grabbing the two boys and pulling them toward the now much smaller pile of scrolls, now only consisted of five. "Both of you hold out your left arms, I'm going give you each two more storage seal tattoos similar to your ANBU seals."

The boys complied and as Orochimaru grabbed their outer biceps and forearms a sizzling sound could be heard after which a pair of seals bearing the kanji for Konoha and storage could be seen. Orochimaru looked at the seals for a moment and nodded his head before he grabbed two of the larger meter tall seals and handed one to Naruto before opening the other one and placing the small box and scroll he got from the ANBU on a blank area not covered in storage seals and writing. He then placed his hands on the scroll and the two objects vanished as an array of symbols took their place before he rolled the scroll up and handed it to Sasuke. "These two scrolls contain personal effects that now belong to the both of you. Keep them in the storage seal on your fore arm, understand?" He said as the two quickly sealed the scrolls away and turned back to look at him.

He nodded before grabbing two small scrolls and opening them with one on top of the other in a cross pattern as he placed the final largest scroll on top, this one being composed of two roll cylinders as opposed to the normal one as well as being almost two meters tall and half a meter in diameter on both rolls. He then sealed the large scroll like he had all the rest however instead of only one of the two scrolls getting a seal mark both of them got half of one. "These two seals are duel layer storage seals meaning you need both of them to open and retrieve the contents, said contents being every single jutsu scroll, historical record, shred of valuable information or valuable artifact that the village has. You can un-seal it like you would anything else just make sure you have both of them and put one on top of the other. Now put those in the Konoha seal and we'll be all done with…" Orochimaru had to stop as the building to their left exploded and collapsed while a barrage of boulders and fireballs began flying towards their position.

Orochimaru bit his both thumbs before he slammed his palms on the ground and a seal array spread to cover the entire building and surrounding block.

"**Kuchiyose: Gojū Rashōmon**"

Suddenly five massive monolithic sealed gates rose from the ground around the academy and formed a protective barrier that easily blocked the incoming projectiles. "Hurry you two seal those scrolls and follow me. We're running out of time." Orochimaru said walking past the two as they did as they were told heading toward the archway where Jraiya was already waiting.

Jiraiya looked over at Orochimaru shook his head towards the opposite side of the arch where Orochimaru promptly began weaving a torrent of handseals in perfect synch with Jiraiya before both of them placed their hands on the sides of the gate and dumped every last droplet of chakra they had into it.

"**Motsure Ban'yū no Sōdaina Gyōretsu**"

"**Motsure Ban'yū no Sōdaina Gyōretsu**"

Soon a silver spark of light formed within the reflection of the mirror and began to expand and grow until it encompassed the entire thing turning it from a reflective mirror into a slab of the purest silver. When it did both Jiraiya and Orochimaru fell to their knees as their sage modes faded from the lack of internal chakra to mix with the natural energy and their respective summons vanished in puffs of smoke.

"That took… a lot… more chakra than I… had expected it to Jiraiya. I was hoping… to have at least something left…to fight with." Orochimaru wheezed as he tried to catch his breath while Sasuke helped him up as they walked around to the front of the portal. "I'm sure if you hadn't convinced me not to finish my body replacement jutsu I wouldn't be feeling like I just circled the continent."

Jiraiya smirked as Naruto pulled him up by him arms and led him next to Orochimaru. "Yea and you wouldn't have been able to even enter sage mode let alone help me with this dam gate." He snickered as both of them regained their composer and stopped leaning on their students both of whom were looking at the portal with pained and guilt ridden eyes, something seemed foreign on the faces of ANBU team Moeha.

Naruto stared ahead at the portal and then back at his sensei before a desperate hopeful idea popped into his mind. "Sensei why don't both of you come with us. Now that the portal is stable it should work right?" Sasuke's eyes lit up upon hearing the idea and he looked up at his sensei as did Naruto only to see both of their teachers sigh sadly.

"I'm afraid that the portal doesn't have enough strength to carry more that the two of you without it destabilizing and killing it occupants in the most horrible fashion imaginable." Orochimaru said casually, smiling a little as the two boys went white at his antics before he turned towards Sasuke and put both hands on his shoulders. "I know that this is something that you don't want to do Sasuke, and I know that you aren't nearly as afraid as you are guilty. For some insane reason you and Naruto think it would make us happy or proud to watch the two of you die in battle with us rather than live on and survive and I want to tell you right now that of all the things you could ever do the only one that would make us hate you is dying before we do like some petulant fool. You are our legacies and the closest thing to sons we've ever had. More importantly you're the answer to my dream, my quest to learn all there is to know. Even if I never do it myself I'm confident that you will be able to carry on my dream. So I will be dammed a trillion times if you take that sacrifice and throw it away, understand." He said as Sasuke and Naruto began to tear up before both managed to nod causing him to smile gently before grabbing Sasuke and hugging him while Jiraiya knelt down and did the same to Naruto.

For one single moment the two boys almost forgot that they were in a warzone and about to leave everything they knew behind and instead simply accepted the warmth and affection that their pseudo-fathers were giving them.

The moment ended however when the five Rashamon gates surrounding the academy vanished into puffs of smoke and the entire sky was filled with projectiles.

Almost in slow motion Naruto and Sasuke watched and Jiraiya and Orochimaru stood up and threw the both of them into the open portal before turning towards the oncoming balls of fire and forming the snake seal as countless explosions erupted across the village bathing the entire horizon in crimson light.

"OROCHIMARU-SENSEI!"

"JIRAIYA-SENSEI!"

Before they could see any more however the shockwave from the explosion flew through the portal opening and slammed into them, rocketing them away from each other through the white abyss at speeds they had never felt before. A split second later the jutsu finished and twin portals of glistening white light opened up each spitting out a child.

XxX

Naruto and Sasuke spun around and raced towards the rapidly closing portals in front of them only to have them vanish just as they touched their hands. They both fell to their knees and felt tears welling up in their eyes as they realized everything that had just been taken from them, the people they had lost, the home they watched burn to the ground, the world they had been catapulted from.

And as Naruto raised his eyes and looked at the beach he was kneeling on while Sasuke raised his own and noticed that he was amidst a sea of sand the two of them realized that the other was nowhere to be seen...

A thousand miles apart two hands slammed into the ground at the same moment and echoed a pair of cries.

"**KUSO!"**

"**KUSO!"**

XxX

AN: Here's the second draft of chapter 1. Sorry this chapter only had a little actual crossover-ness in it but the next one will have far more. Also I'm going to put translations in these stories, not because I think most people need or even want them but rather because I want to try and make this something that can be read and enjoyed by someone even if they haven't read/watched the relevant source material while still giving it an immersive feeling. For that reason please let me know if any of the imagery was lacking or poorly developed. Also sorry if the end of this is confusing, I didn't mean for it to be so but I wanted to have both of them realize it at the same time. To clarify however they are in fact separated.

Translations:

Suna = Sand, In this case referring to one of the five great villages

Chunin = middle ninja, in this case being a ranking of skill and strength

Shinobi = another word for ninja

ANBU = Shinobi special ops force

Konoha = literal meaning is tree leaves, but often considered to just mean leaf, in this case referring to one of the five great villages

Sharingan = ocular ability of the uchiha clan

Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu = Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique

Fūton: Daitoppa = Wind Release: Great Breakthrough

Moeha no Konoha = Burning leaves of Konoha

Teme = Bastard

Dobe = Idiot/ dead last

Iwa = Rock, in this case referring to one of the five great villages

Kyuubi = Nine tails

Yondaime = Fourth

Hokage = Fire Shadow, leader of Konoha

Sandaime = Third

Kumo = cloud, in this case referring to one of the five great villages

Sannin = literally meaning three ninjas, it refers to a group of three extremely powerful and legendary Konoha shinobi

Kami = god

Shodaime = first

Mokuton = wood release

Kanji = type of Japanese lettering

Genin = lower ninja, usually a young academy graduate or very weak ninja.

Sama = a suffix attached to a name or title to denote extreme respect

Doton: Doryūheki = earth release: earth style wall

Chakra = an energy source that is produced when physical energy is blended with spiritual energy within the body.

Hai = yes

Kuchiyose no Jutsu = summoning technique

Kun = suffix often attached to the end of male friends, lovers, or people younger than someone

Jutsu = technique, with regards to the story it is similar to a spell

Taicho = captain

Kuchiyose: Gojū Rashōmon = Summoning: Quintuple Rashomon

Motsure Ban'yū no Sōdaina Gyōretsu = Grand Procession of Entangled Worlds

Kuso = shit

Thanks for reading everyone. Please review, and pm me if you want to discuss anything.


	2. Lost in a Foreign Land

Lost in Foreign Land

Sasuke wiped away the freezing sweat that clung to his brows and plodded through yet another dune of irritatingly soft and cold sand.

The desert that the jutsu had dropped him in had as unforgiving a temperature swing as the dead sea of Suna and what had only an hour ago been a sweltering sauna had now become a frigid tundra.

Just a few hours earlier, he had finally come to terms with the fact that his village was gone and that he had somehow lost Naruto amidst the chaos of the space-time jutsu. Sasuke had decided to believe that Naruto was somewhere on the same plane of existence…or dimension…or world that he was and that if he was to have any chance of finding the dobe in the hay stack he would need to survive long enough to get out of the arid plain he was in and find civilization.

Three hours into his march without a single sign of intelligent life however and Sasuke was beginning to fear the world they had been tossed into had no people living in it, or at the very least he got the short end of the stick and was sitting in the ass end of this world. The arid rocky land he found himself in, while not as barren as the desert of wind country, certainly lacked the foliage cover that he had come to take for granted as a leaf shinobi and seemed to stretch on as far as the eye could see except for a pair of mountain ranges far in the distance. Sasuke had seen them when he awoke three hours earlier and he'd been heading towards them since, hoping to find woodlands in the valley between them and from there people. But as the sun was beginning to set Sasuke found himself shivering at the rapidly dropping temperature, and his priority shifted from reaching his destination to finding some kind of shelter for the night.

Just as Sasuke was about to use a variation of the earth wall technique to make a dome the sun fully set and he noticed a pin prick of light in the distance. Smiling at his good fortune Sasuke altered his course and headed for the far off lights, unsealing his mask and tightening his travel cloak around himself as the wind whipped past him.

XxX

Naruto felt the cool sand grains sink under his feet as he patted his stomach contently and scarfed down that last of the fish he had caught before continuing on his way.

After his momentary breakdown at the mouth of the portal he had convinced himself that Sasuke was most likely not dead, but rather somewhere… not here, but hopefully still here in the universal sense even if he wasn't here in the proximate sense. If he thought for about it for a moment he realized there was a very good chance that Sasuke could be dead or in some other dimension or even worse he himself could be dead and the endless beach he found himself on was actually heaven and Sasuke could be the one still alive, or perhaps the only reason he still existed was because Sasuke was thinking about trying to find him and in fact Nartuo wasn't truly there but rather a construct of someone else's imagination.

Growling in frustration Naruto vigorously rubbed his temples in a futile effort to dislodge the paradoxical thoughts that had been running rampant since he found himself in this new world. Despite being a seal prodigy who could grasp and form the most complex arrays in the world Naruto still felt his head spin at the concept of multiple worlds and dimensions and though he could understand the reasoning behind it, found himself increasingly questioning the wisdom of his sensei in hurling him into a hole that could shred space-time only to then detonate a bomb next to it.

Regrets and irritating memories aside though Naruto looked forward again and remembered what he was doing. He had decided that it would be best for his currently fragile mind to convince himself that Sasuke was alive somewhere and that he should spend his time trying to find his wayward partner, which meant he would need to find out where he was. Based on that goal Naruto had resolved to follow the shore and hopefully run into a coastal town where he could get some answers.

Looking up at the starlit sky however Naruto decided that his journey would have to be put on hold until tomorrow and decided to make camp for the night.

Before he could though he heard an angry scream tear through the night from somewhere further up the beach and he immediately ran towards it.

As he was coming over a small sandy hill he saw a moonlit patch of red on the beach in the distance and felt his heart soar when he realized it was hair not blood and that it was connected to a person kneeling in the sand. "OI!" Naruto yelled happily waving his hand in the air in greeting as the other readied a throwing knife in unbreakable instinct.

In a moment Naruto reached the person and once he was up close he noticed it was a girl around his age dressed in some kind of wet dingy tattered rag and covered in bandages on her arms and legs. The only part of her head that he could see at the moment was her shoulder length red hair since she had her head bowed and her hair hid her face. After a moment of silence Naruto noticed droplets of water fall from her face and he decided to try and break the silence. "Um excuse me, are you alright?"

The girl sniffled and wiped her face with her hand before she looked up at him letting Naruto see her clearly. Her skin was fair and light like one who rarely saw the sun's light yet held splotches of ground in dirt and grime that were common among laborers. Over one of her eyes was a cloth eye patch shielding it for reasons Naruto could only speculate, though the dried blood around the area gave him an idea, and her other eye was a light brown color that was currently doing its best to bore into him like a drill. "I'm fine" she growled, trying to make him leave her alone.

Naruto nodded slowly at the obvious lie but decided not to pry any further. "Right, well I was actually hoping you could help me with something. I'm looking for someone and I'm really, really lost so I was wondering if you could help me figure out where… well where here is to be honest." He said as he motioned all around him with his hands.

The girl maintained her glare at him for a moment longer in a final attempt to make him leave before she sighed in a mix of exhaustion and defeat. "I don't know."

Naruto sighed in disappointment as he ran his hand through his hair. "Well that's a bummer. I was hoping you might know where a town or something was." He said before plopping onto the ground next to her and leaning back on his hands. "So where are you headed then, if you don't mind me asking?"

The girl looked up at the star lit for a moment before she closed her eye and sighed. "I don't really know right now. Something happened to me recently and… I'm still reeling from it a bit."

For a split second Naruto's hair shadowed his eyes and a ghost of a frown crept onto his face. "I know the feeling" he spoke in a nearly inaudible whisper that caused the girl to turn and look at him. When she did though he looked back at her with the brightest grin she had ever seen. "Well seeing as we both have no idea where we are and no idea where we're headed why don't we head nowhere together for a bit."

The girl looked him over with a scrutinizing single eyed gaze, trying to find any hint of deceit of lies before she gave up and realized that given recent events she couldn't really trust herself to know a liar from an honest man. "I'd prefer to be alone if it's all the same. Besides don't you have someone you're looking for? Wont traveling with me take away from finding them?" she asked after a moment immediately noticing how Naruto's eyes became downcast and the happiness he exuded waned.

"I don't even have an idea of how to start looking for him to be honest so it's no different where I go. The only thing I can think of is trying to think like him and go somewhere that he might, but that's really just a hope." He stated before regaining his happy aura and smiling at her. "That said it wouldn't inconvenience me in the least to travel with you, so what do you say."

The girl looked at him for a moment. "Fine, at least until the next town."

Naruto beamed at her acceptance and held his hand towards her. "Awesome, my name's Naruto."

The girl reached up and grasped Naruto's hand in her own and shook it. "I'm Erza, Erza Scarlet."

XxX

Sasuke slid through the cloth door in front of him and made his way into the dank stone bar the light had led to earning many glares from the occupants which he answered with a brief, weak pulse of killing intent, silencing and terrifying them into submission.

He approached the bar, which was a single formation of stone that someone seemed to have perfectly flattened on the top, and spoke to the bartender, his voice being warped by his mask. "Tell me where I am, and where the nearest town is."

The bartender gulped at the child sized ball of green cloaked death that was staring at him until he steeled his nerves and put on best tour guide smile. "Y…you'll need look no further friend for you're in in Nazaki's world famous desert pub n shop, home of the cactus and ice smoothie and Desert Rose Blitzer. There's nothing in any town that you can't here so is there anything I can get you sir?" he said hoping to make a paying customer of the man.

Sasuke however simply growled and pulled the man forward with his right hand while his left index and middle finger began sparking with lightning, which he placed next to the man's throat. "Why don't you try telling me what I asked this time okay?"

The man frantically started waving his hands as he fought in vain against the short monster's grip "AHHHHHH holy fuck um um um… we're in the…the Yanson desert northwest of the Einshow valley w…where the towns of Hinogatte, Shirotsume, and Gallnan are located. Please please please don't kill me man me just let go and I promise I'll do whatever you ask."

Sasuke sighed at the man but was satisfied nonetheless and released his grip on him and sat down on one of the stone slabs that served as bar stools. Meanwhile the bartender caught his breath and looked at all the patrons in the bar before nudging his head towards Sasuke. "Get me a glass of tomato juice and tell me which of those towns is closest." Sasuke growled making the bartender instantly pour him a glass and look at him with an overly innocent smile.

"That would have to be Gallnan town sir, it's actually more south of here than south east. Once you leave here about six hours south on foot you'll reach the Sabakunobara River and just across from that is the town." The bartender said courteously until he noticed all the other patrons surrounding Sasuke and his smile warped into a manic grin. "Of course the only way that you'll ever reach there is in a body bag. Get em boys."

As soon as everyone went to strike Sasuke finished his drink and placed the glass upside down back on the counter, turning and rapidly gazing into the eyes of each of his attackers for a single moment as he got out of his seat. The bartender had closed his eyes for a split second during which he had expected to hear the various splats shinks and slices that followed a brutal murder, but instead heard only silence and opened his eyes to see all of the patrons looking at the where the man had been sitting with paralyzed trance like faces of dread while said man simply walked through the flap door and back out into the desert night.

Sasuke rubbed his hands together for a moment to fight off the cold and used the mountains he now knew were to the southwest as his bearing before he shot off to the south at his top speed.

XxX

Erza scarlet grabbed another stick off of the moonlit ground and added it to the bundle in her arms.

Her new companion, Naruto as he called himself, had asked her to gather some sticks and kindling to make a fire for them while he took care of making a shelter for the night.

Reaching for another stick Erza allowed her mind to wander on the subject of the…odd is a good way of putting it she supposed, boy that she had met only an hour ago. At first glance he seemed like your typical run of the mill moron who had likely gotten separated from a friend or family member during some trip and was now wandering around trying to find him. Although that didn't explain the clothing he was wearing, if armored arm guards and a vest could even be considered clothing. Still based on his attitude he was at first glance just a wandering buffoon albeit an oddly dressed one.

However Erza could almost feel the faintest of auras about him, less a true feeling than an echo of an echo of a thought, suppressed so well it almost seemed to vanish. It was in the way he walked around and the way his eyes looked at things, forsaking the lazy calm gait or casual glance she had seen in everyone she had every know in favor of a dynamic efficient way of doing things that made use of every single motion his body performed. It was hard to notice and he seemed to actively avoid behaving like that since he only did it when she turned to go get the firewood, which only made it more suspicious.

For the moment she decided to wait and see what happened and walked back to where he had been sitting last with the firewood in her hands. When she arrived she saw him lying on his back on the sand staring up at the stars like he didn't have any cares in the world, with absolutely no shelter in sight.

Feeling her one eye twitch in annoyance she grabbed one of the sticks from her bundle and threw it at Naruto aiming to beam him on the head. As soon as it left her hand though Naruto sat up and stretched letting the stick plant itself a foot into the sand and a forty five degree angle. Naruto looked back at it for a moment until his eyes widened and a smile filled his face. "Oi Erza-san nice work on getting the fire set up. A couple more of those and we can get it lit."

Erza took a deep breath and willed the rage storm brewing inside her to subside as she walked to wards him and dropped the sticks next to the other one. "I thought you were going to make us a shelter."

Naruto looked at her and smiled before he stood up. "I wanted to make sure you were coming back, this jutsu is a pain to get rid of and it would be cold if I was the only one in a shelter built for two y'know? But now that you're here I'll get to work give me a sec okay." He said as he moved his hands in some weird patterns

Erza ignored Naruto's explanation for his reason and his last sentence in favor of focusing on the word he had used. "What do you mean jutsu, I've never heard of anything like…AHHHHHHH" she stopped and screamed when Naruto finished his hand signs and suddenly vomited a thick river of sludge like mud from his throat. Before she had time to try and see if he was okay he slammed his hands into the mud.

"**Doton: Doryūheki****"**

Suddenly the mud spread out into a circle around her, Naruto and the sticks and from that circle walls of rock began to rise until they met at the top, leaving a small circular opening that allowed a small sliver of moonlight to illuminate the cave, room, thing. "Damn, I really thought I had a door going that time. Oh well, at least the vent hole worked. Hang on a sec Erza-san, I'm going to carve a door real quick."

Erza pulled her jaw close as she looked around at the cave that Naruto had… grown it would seem out of his vomit. It was made of a slate grey stone that managed to curve with a nearly flawless smoothness. After inspecting it for a moment to make sure it wasn't wet and coated in bile she placed her hand against it and felt that it was cool to the touch and after giving it a light tap found that it was as hard as a natural rock would have been.

Turning to Naruto to ask what he did, she saw that he was holding his hands together on the wall in front of him before a jagged roughly round portion of it collapsed away into sand. "There that's…kinda better I guess." Naruto said as he appraised his work only to frown in annoyance at it before pinning his cloak above it with two odd looking knives. "Sorry about the door, and the wall to be honest, I don't quite have earth style jutsu perfected and doing them on sand makes em even harder. But we have a shelter and in a bit we'll have a fire so it's not all bad."

Erza simply stared at the pile of sand and the wall room they were in before looking to Naruto in shock. "I had no idea you were a mage Naruto-san, and being able to use it without a circle appearing is amazing."

Naruto tilted his head in confusion and completely ignored her mention of some kind or circle. "I'm not a wizard or sorcerer Erza-san and what I did isn't anything mystic or magical. It's just a simple doton jutsu I know, to be honest doton isn't even my affinity. I'm really much better at fūton and suiton jutsus."

This time it was Erza who tilted her head in confusion. "I'm afraid I don't understand Naruto-san. What you just did certainly looked like some of the magic I've seen albeit earth based rather than electricity or fire."

Naruto furrowed his brows in deep thought before shrugging and walking towards the sticks. "I guess this magic thing must just be your people's version of jutsus then." He said casually before plopping down in front of the sticks and branches and organizing them into a pile. "So this magic business you mentioned, can you do any?"

Erza pouted and looked at her hands. "I'm not really sure actually. I did it once but I don't really remember how I did, it just that it happened."

Naruto hummed in thought. "I don't know about magic but that kind of thing is pretty common for my people, especially if something traumatic happens." He said, slowing at the last part and noticing Erza's eyes shift down slightly. He looked back down at the logs and continued his work. "Did something traumatic happen to you recently?"

Erza looked up at Naruto with terror filled eyes as her mind flashed with images of people burning and dying and found her mouth trying to form words. Before she could try and explain it further though she was stopped by a hand waving her off. "Sorry I'm a little out of practice at socializing with people. That was a pretty rude thing of me to ask so forget about it okay."

Erza stuttered for a moment trying to find the words to explain what had happened to her but eventually settled on smiling and letting it go. "Thanks, and sorry. I shouldn't be weak enough to be upset about it."

"Eh it isn't a matter of strength, we all have hot buttons we get upset about so you shouldn't worry yourself over it okay. Like I said it was my fault for asking about something that I should have known would be touchy." Naruto said with a kind smile. "So how about we try the whole conversation thing over again all right. You said that you had done this 'magic' stuff once before so can you tell me what it did." He said happily as he looked down at the teepee of sticks in front of him and pinched the top of one stick, causing it to catch fire after a few moments and spread to the rest of the pile, filling the room in a soft warm glow.

Erza looked at the fire and felt the warmth pass over her body as she recalled the moment she first called upon her magic. The screams, the fires, the pain…the bodies. Suddenly she noticed she had pulled her knees up to her chest and was beginning to hyper ventilate, but after a moment she calmed down. "It's a little hazy but I remember a large purple magic circle under me and then levitating a bunch of weapons and shooting them at people. That was the only time I used it though, I kinda just found out I had magic."

Naruto's eyes widened in amazement when he heard her mention levitation and suddenly he was on his hands and knees with his face in her face talking at a mile minute. "How many did you levitate? Were they all made of the same material? Was there a certain radius you picked stuff up from? Did you pick up anything that you weren't looking at? How fast did you fire them? On the circle what type of runes were depicted? What shade of purple was it?"

Erza sighed as he invaded her personal space and kept firing off questions, some of which were so specific that she couldn't have done so even if she had been paying attention when it happened. "Umm like I said Naruto-san I'm a little hazy about the whole thing." She said as she pushed him away from her and he sat back down.

Naruto kept the smile and look of amazement on his face as he settled down. "Sorry, it's just doing something like that is pretty abnormal where I'm from unless you have magnet release or maybe chakra strings, perhaps something illusionary…no that makes no sense plus the circle seems like fūinjutsu maybe you… never mind." Naruto stopped his ramblings. "My sensei and his partner really liked learning about new techniques so I guess it passed onto me. Hehe sorry I got all, in your face and stuff."

Erza smiled at him. "It's fine." She scooted closer to the fire and rubbed her hands in front of it, feeling the cold numbness flee from her fingers. "So that sensei you mentioned. Is he the person you're looking for?"

Naruto's happy carefree smile fell from his face and he gazed into the fire with a vacant stare. "No…sensei is…no he's not the person I'm looking for. I'm trying to find my… brother I guess you could say. Something happened and…" Naruto laughed humorlessly and held his hand to his face. "To be honest he could be dead for all I know, but I'm praying that he's alive somewhere and that I can find him. If he's gone then I…I don't…" he sighed "I'm going to bed. Gomensai Erza-san, we can make plans tomorrow."

Erza looked at Naruto in confusion as he curled up next to the fire and promptly drifted off to sleep, but chose to ignore it and go to sleep as well, hoping the morning would bring answers.

XxX

Sasuke looked down from the hill he stood on at the moonlit village beneath him, the only sign of occupation coming from a lamp hanging outside what seemed to be an inn.

He had followed the directions of the bartender and despite how easy it would have been to lie it seemed he spoke only truth. At his top speed the six hour civilian trip was carved into a half hour sprinting session which led him to the riverside town he was now looking at.

Gallnan town was a small looking settlement with the only two story buildings being the suspected inn and a church, which also happened to be the only building he could see that was made of stone rather than wood. It was bordered by the gently meandering Sabakunobara River to the north and an expansive forest to the south, while to the west sat a tributary of the Sabakunobara River and far to the east sat lofty snow covered peaks.

Feeling that he had done a good enough job committing his surroundings to memory Sasuke headed into town towards the inn.

He quickly reached the town and made his way into the inn where he found a middle aged man asleep at a small counter. Sasuke walked up to the man and gently shook him by the shoulder until he stirred from his slumber…

"Ah yes sonny what can I help ya wi…AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Only to scream in fright at the cloak and mask ensemble that Sasuke was still wearing which gave him the appearance of some kind of agent of evil to the untrained eye. "I would like to request a room for the night." He spoke in a warbled, guttural voice that didn't assuage the older man's fears in the least. "That won't be an issue will it?"

The old man's head bobbed up and down frantically as he reached under the counter and held an iron key out to Sasuke with trembling hands, nowhere near brave enough to ask the child sized specter before him to pay. "Of c…c…course not sir. Second on the left d…down the hall. Please e…enjoy your stay."

Sasuke grabbed the key from the man and nodded in appreciation before marching off towards his newly gained room. Upon opening the door he saw that the room was of the quality he expected upon seeing the exterior, containing a single window on the far side of the room, a wooden bed to his left and a matching dresser opposite it with a mirror above, all seemingly handmade given the subtle imperfections that Sasuke saw in them.

The simplicity and homeliness of the furniture were of little concern to Sasuke however and he ignored further examining them in favor of shutting the door behind him and placing a security tag Naruto had given him on the door connecting it to the frame. The principle was a simple one Naruto had come up with for sleeping in undercover situations or hostile cities and worked by simply generating a bang and a bright flash of light should the seal be forcefully removed, as it would be if the door were to open without Sasuke's knowledge. Though the flash bang portion would do little to stun a trained killer it had proven enough to give them pause for a second and more importantly ensure whoever was asleep woke in time to fight.

After sparing the seal a quick glance Sasuke walked towards the window to close the shutters and seal them when he noticed something about himself in the mirror.

When he turned and inspected himself he saw that his eyes had undergone a drastic transformation. In place of the three black tomoe circling his pupil on a backdrop of blood red, his eyes now held an inverted and far more complicated pattern depicting a curved six point star of red against a black background.

Sasuke quickly sealed the window shut before he sealed his mask away and focused intently on his eyes. In all honesty he had felt slightly different since the space-time jutsu dumped him in this world but he had thought that it was just a result of rampant emotions or excess adrenaline. Now though it seemed that his eyes had matured again like they did when he was gaining his tomoes, though he didn't have any knowledge of any stage beyond the third tomoe save for rumors and whispers. Both Sasuke's elder brother Itachi and his friend Shisui were rumored to have accessed some kind of immense well of power a few years ago which had something to do with their eyes, however no one had seen them use it personally and the ancient records of the sharingan's inner workings were something only the clan head was privy to seeing.

At that thought Sasuke glanced down at the personal storage seal on his arm and realized that the title of clan head was now his and that all of the most important scrolls chronicling his clan's bloodline and history were likely sealed within his arm.

Quickly placing his thumb on the seal Sasuke pumped a small burst of chakra into it and saw a small puff of smoke before he was holding a massive meter long white scroll with Uchiha fans upon navy blue bands along the top and bottom edge and labeled with his name in elegant gold Kanji on the middle. Within the scroll was everything that was dubbed by the village and his sensei to be something he owned or deserved to have.

Casting an instinctive eye at the door, window, and every corner of the roof for anything or one watching, Sasuke opened the scroll and laid it out on the bed as he began looking through its contents.

It appeared a great deal different than most of the scrolls he had come across in his time as an ANBU as rather than large seal arrays taking up a square foot of the page there were rows upon rows of small, tightly packed, and intricately drawn seals each with a kanjis showing what was in each. Given the length of the scroll and how many seals he could see Sasuke guessed that the scroll contained thousands objects within it, even more if one were to consider that some of the seals held other scrolls in them which would contain even more objects or perhaps more scrolls as well.

Sasuke stopped thinking about how deep the layers of the scroll may go and instead focused on looking at the descriptive Kanji in each seal until near the end of the scroll he found one that read "History of Uchiha Doujutsu". He focused chakra into his pointer finger and tapped on the small seal before a burst of smoke appeared revealing an ancient looking wooden scroll container adorned with countless tiny depictions of the sharingan as well as some that looked like sharingan but held unique patterns and designs. Realizing that the odd sharingan were like his own Sasuke realized that the scroll inside would likely be able to tell him what he needed to know so he turned it over to open it but found that it held an odd lock he had never seen the likes of before.

In place of the Fūinjutsu seal normally used to protect documents was an elegant golden latch that held the lid of the scroll container firmly shut. The truly odd thing however was the fact that the latch held no key hole or lever of any kind and didn't seem to reach in the least when Sasuke forced his chakra into it of smeared his blood on it which normally opened the kind of blood seals favored by his clan. Sasuke finally grew frustrated and flicked the latch in irritation causing it to fall back and reveal a coin sized mirror underneath it bordered with a twisting chain of tiny unreadable seals. As Sasuke looked closely and activated his sharingan to get a clearer view, his eye passed over the mirror and the cover he had opened suddenly flew shut before a seam formed on it and it clicked neatly open revealing a large but plain scroll inside.

Noting the size of the scroll Sasuke settled in for a long night of reading as he began to learn the history of his clan, all the while failing to notice a new sharingan had appeared on the outside of container, bearing a six pointed star on a black background.

XxX

Erza awoke to the sounds of seagulls cawing and found that the shelter she had been sleeping in had vanished completely, along with the fire pit she had been sleeping next to leaving her alone on the beach.

"Good, you're awake." Erza whipped her head around at the voice and saw Naruto walking out of the brush with a few pieces of various different fruit in his hands, half of which he dropped on her lap as he walked by her and sat down. "None of these should be poisonous so eat up and then we'll head out." He said before he began eating.

Erza looked at the colorful arrangement of fruit in her lap and suddenly felt her stomach groan in anticipation. She hadn't seen anything as delicious as the food in front of her for as long as she could remember and it almost seemed too good to be true. Immediately Erza began devouring the fruits before her like a starving animal and, with the speed of a professional glutton, managed to finish them all in the span of a few seconds leaving a warm sensation in her stomach and a pleasant mix of flavors in her mouth.

Meanwhile Naruto simply blinked several times in shock as he looked at her before chuckling a little at the sight. As he finished the last his fruit he tapped his ANBU tattoo and unsealed a pair of canteens before flashing through a few hand seals and holding his right hand out with his palm up.

"**Suiton: ****Gyōketsu**"

After Naruto said that the air above his palm seemed to swirl slightly before small droplets of water appeared and gravitated together above his palm in a blob that continued growing until it was the size of a basketball. As Erza looked at the floating sphere of water in awe Naruto rolled his upturned palm towards the two canteens and the ball of water split into two streams that proceeded to flow into them until they both slightly overflowed. Naruto screwed the caps onto the canteens and stood up before handing one of them to Erza. "Here, it would be best if you don't die from dehydration while we're walking." He said happily, ignoring the morbid picture he had just painted.

Erza accepted the canteen and put the strap around her shoulder before standing up and looking at Naruto who simply nodded and turned towards the ocean before pivoting to his right and setting off leaving Erza to stare at him for a moment before she remembered something. "Hey wait a second!" she shouted as she caught up to him. "You said we were going to make plans in the morning."

Naruto tapped his chin in thought and looked up at the sky "Hmmmm I did say that didn't I? Well the way I see it neither of us have a clue where we are so flowing the coast is the safest bet considering the likelihood of there being a port somewhere. As long as I have chakra we will have water to drink and despite how rocky this place is it's got a decent amount a fruit and fish to be had." He said before turning his head back down to earth and looking at Erza "Is that agreeable with you Erza-san?"

Erza nodded at the logic of his plan and felt calmer knowing he hadn't simply decided to wander off in a random direction. "Yes that sounds good. I didn't see any lights last night but if we're lucky there may be a town within view once we get around those mountains ahead."

Naruto smiled at her statement and the two of them began the journey.

Within two hours of walking the two had managed to circle around the mountains Erza had mentioned and were rewarded with an uninhibited view of the coast stretching off into the horizon. And much to Naruto's delight, they had found that the rest of the coast as far as they could see had a forest growing almost up against the water that was just dense enough for him to use his favorite means of travel.

Naruto walked up to one of the trees and smiled in delight as he placed his hand on the trunk. "Thank kami finally we can start making actual headway."

Erza tilted her head in confusion at Naruto's words as she had felt they were going at a fairly brisk pace considering they had hiked something like twelve mils in only two hours. Her curiosity was cut short and replaced with awe however when she saw Naruto begin walking up the tree in front of them like if was flat ground and then start jumping up and down on its branches. "Alright, it looks to be plenty strong enough so we can head out." He said happily before jumping down and motioning towards his back. "Hop on Erza-san, with trees like this I'll be able to get us to a town in no time.

Looking at Naruto with equal parts trepidation at whatever he was planning and irritation at being asked to ride on his back Erza decided to give whatever he was scheming the benefit of the doubt and climbed on. "Fine but I don't see how this will be any faster."

Naruto turned back and smiled before running up the tree and stopping on a branch a dozen meters up. As Erza was wondering what his plan was she suddenly felt her eyes widen and her stomach flip as Naruto jumped off the branch and sailed through the air before landing on another branch for barely a second before repeating the process gaining sped with each jump. In a matter of moments the foliage around them was streaking by like a green blur and Naruto continued to rocket from branch to branch while avoiding all the obstacles in his path. As they sailed a scant meter past a tree trunk that would have flattened them into a bloody puddle Erza was about to scream out her protest but halted when she saw Naruto's face and the look of calm almost serene peace that adorned it, as though flying through a forest was the most natural thing in the world for him.

Deciding that if Naruto could handle it she could Erza held in her protest and did her make to get comfortable as they continued to hurtle towards they destination.

XxX

AN: Here's the rewrite of chapter two, and I gotta say I'm feeling a lot better about it over the old version but I would love to hear from everyone else. Let me know about any little thing you may or may not like about this by the way. Nothing is too small to tell me about weather its clunky cumbersome dialogue sloppy repetitious structure or poor descriptions on my part I want to know about anything I may have done poorly on and am even willing to accept flames if you feel the need to direct them at me.

Translations:

Fūton: wind release

Suiton: water release

Sabakunobara: desert rose

Gomenasai: I'm sorry

Fūinjutsu: Sealing techniques

Tomoe: Japanese abstract shape resembling a comma

Thanks for reading everyone. Please review, and pm me if you want to discuss anything.


	3. New Day

New Day

A pair of obsidian eyes flickered open wearily before reflexively cringing shut as they were assaulted by bright light.

Sasuke shook his head and raised a hand to his eyes blocking the sliver of light that was flowing in from the window. For a moment he felt his body start to tense up at the thought that his shutters had been opened without the seal he placed on them going off, though after his eyes adjusted he realized they were still firmly shut and he simply had the misfortune of laying in the path of the only beam of light coming into the room.

Sasuke groggily rubbed his eyes and swung his feet off the bed, only to widen his eyes in shock when he heard the clattering of wood and ruffled paper. He looked down and saw his family scroll and the box that held it sitting on the floor, obviously having fallen when he got out of bed. Sasuke blinked in confusion for a moment until he realized he hadn't remembered falling asleep last night. 'Damn I can't believe I fell asleep reading that scroll. I'm not some stupid genin, I should be able to pull an all-nighter without passing out.' Sasuke thought in irritation as he reached down and put the scroll back in its box before sealing them in his personal storage scroll and finally back into his tattoo.

Sasuke quickly unsealed his mask and started gathering his things as he allowed the information he had crammed the night before to start sinking in.

He had learned that the eyes he held know were known as the Mangekyo Sharingan, a rare form that was unlocked by individuals who suffered tremendous emotional loss after gaining their first three tomoes. There were accounts from the warring clans period that stated someone had to kill the person closest to them to gain the eyes but, based on a pair of footnotes provided by his brother Itachi and his cousin Shisui, Sasuke found that the very act of undergoing tremendous loss was enough to trigger it. It would explain why the two of them were able to use the mangekyo following the loss of the clan, and Sasuke was willing to bet that if he'd had his tomoes when the bombing occurred he would have gained his Mangekyo back then as well.

Sasuke sighed in thought as he undid the two seals in the room and gave it one more sweeping glance before leaving and clenching his fists as he walked back towards the front desk. 'Gomenasai nii-san, Orochimaru sensei, I shouldn't be drawing strength from your deaths like some kind of dammed parasite.'

When Sasuke made it back to the small reception area he saw that the front desk was empty which seemed odd considering the old man had been willing to sleep at it last night. Seeing a small bell Sasuke rang it several times in an effort to find the man and at least offer gratitude for what was nearly two free nights rest though after several minutes of waiting Sasuke simply decided to offer his gratitude in spirit and headed out the door into the late afternoon daylight.

As soon as he made it onto the street Sasuke noticed what seemed to be a large group of people gathered in something akin to a village square between several houses and a generously identified town hall, which Sasuke only considered such based of the fact that it had a large steeple. Deciding that someone in the group of people would be able to point him to the nearest town he headed towards them, only to stop when he was close enough to see what was actually going on.

Standing in the middle of the square with an array of blades in their hands were what Sasuke could only assume were bandits, each glaring at one of the villagers while the tallest among them, a thin man with shaggy white hair and grey eyes, marched forward and lazily held a five foot nodachi on his shoulder. "All right everyone listen up and this will go really smooth. I am Cole Bastolio of the renowned Bastolio gang and we are here to relieve you of your excess material trappings. That means anything of value that isn't food, after all we don't want you starving to death on us cause that would be plain mean." He said with a smirk as the rest of his gang snickered. "That said, we will be forced to ensure a proper example is set should some of you try and resist our rather modest demands. So here's what's going to happen, all of you are going to grab everything of value and hand it over to my associates and if one of you resists, doesn't bring anything, or I feel you didn't bring enough, I'm going to grant you a private audience with the business end of my beautiful blade _Fire Storm._ I assume it goes without saying that such an event would be synonymous with death so it would be in all of your best interests to do as I said." The man laughed lightly before raising his sword and tapping it twice on the ground. "Alright then chop chop let's get a move on."

Having decided he heard enough to warrant action Sasuke started walking forward through the crowd until he was at the front and looking up into the Cole's eyes. "Eh what do you want you little mask wearing midget, didn't you hear my speech. I made it explicitly clear what was going to happen didn't I?" he asked arching a brow before he hefted his nodachi back onto his shoulder and met Sasuke's obsidian eyes with his own grey ones. His eyes widened however when Sasuke spoke and his mask twisted his voice into a warbled demonic pitch.

"Under Article 13 of the Konoha civilian safety act, execution level lethal force is authorized against individuals threatening bodily harm on civilians following two verbal warnings. This is your first, relinquish your weapons and depart immediately or face judgment."

Cole blinked several times before he broke out into a fit of laughter that was echoed by his men and lasted several seconds. "Whew that's a good one weirdo when I heard that freaky voice of yours you almost had me going. To be honest though you kinda made my job easier, if I can help it I don't like killing civilians cause they're where I get my money from but they always need to see someone get mangled so they get the message. Looks like you volunteered, Brotsuto, Cayame kill this shit and let's get done with this." He said as two men stepped forward and swung their swords towards either side of Sasuke's neck…

Only for him to shimmer into thin air. As the two and their compatriots looked around in confusion both of them let out a wet cough and reached their hands up to their mouths which they found were pouring blood. The bandits and the villagers then looked at the two in awe as their entire forms shimmered away to reveal both of them with their blades plunged straight through the others throat. Their eyes widened for a moment in terror as they tried to pull the blades from their throats, but by then the life had drained from their eyes and the both fell to the ground dead. Suddenly Sasuke's voice called out from the air around them all and the gang began sending fearful glances all around

"Article 1 of the Konoha wartime self-defense act states that individuals attempting to, or engaging in the act of causing bodily harm to a registered Konoha shinobi will be faced with immediate execution and said shinobi is granted the full authority of the Hokage to immediately remove any and all threats to the safety of civilian or Shinobi assets."

Cole growled and stared around trying to find the source of the voice as his men all began switching between panic and fear with every motion their eyes made. Deciding to deal with this situation safely and chalk this town up to random acts of god he grabbed _Fire Storm _in both hands and swung it in and arc at one of the buildings where he thought he heard the voice.

"**Fire Reaver!"**

As he swung the sword a red runic circle appeared and a massive gout of flames shot forth and slammed into the house, deforming for a moment before it cascaded over the house and incinerated the walls and roof of the structure leaving only flaming remains and scattered piles of ash.

Cole smirked at the sight of his prized nodachi in action and placed it back onto his shoulder in a defiant pose fit for a man who had just conquered a nation.

"Oi ghost boy you see that, that's the power of my _Fire Storm, _the blade that brings forth a hurricane of flames with every swing." He said gesturing with his free hand to the now collapsed pile of timber. "With its power I'll burn this whole village down until I find you and when I do my men and I are going to dance on your ashes.

For a moment the only sound in the square was the soft crackling of the flames and the breaking of wooden beams, but then Sasuke spoke once more in what was as close to a mocking tone as he could make with his mask on.

"Look again"

Cole raised an eyebrow at what the voice had said and turned back towards the house but when he did he no longer saw burnt timber and wood but rather saw all of his guild mates each in varying stages of immolation but all of them very much dead. Cole's eyes widened for a moment in horror as he took in the sight of his men all dead on the ground before him, some having been burned to the bone while the ones nearest to him had their very skeletons melt away.

"I believe you missed me Cole-san." Sasuke said from behind Cole, where he now stood in plain view between him and the crowd.

Cole glared at him with as much simmering hate as one could compress into a single look and turned to face him. "I'm going to end you, you little demon. I'm going to destroy you, this town, and whatever hellhole managed to spawn you. Then I'll burn it and every one in it into fucking cinders and when I'm finished I'll…." He suddenly widen his eyes in shock and felt his chest twist in pain, and looked down at his chest only to see nine inches of steel protruding from where his heart should have been. As Cole felt the strength leave him he fell to his knees and dropped _Fire Storm _to the ground in a metallic clatter. In front of him the Sasuke he had been conversing with faded into air and shimmered away, leaving him to shakily turn his head and look behind him where the real Sasuke crouched down, one hand still on the ninjato stuck through his chest. In his final moment of life Cole locked eyes with Sasuke one final time, though rather than the smoky obsidian he had seen earlier there was now only blinding crimson.

XxX

Naruto took a deep breath and sighed in contentment as he again leapt from branch to branch through the trees, managing to reach the sedate but still breakneck speed he had trained his entire life to achieve. Out of all the ways shinobi move through the world there was something truly exhilarating about ANBU speed tree leaping. Maybe it was the tendency amongst ANBU to place speed on their priority list where others put safety, or perhaps it was the additional acrobatics training they received that allowed them to reliably make leaps that would normally lead to death for lesser shinobi. Maybe it was the above average chakra control of an ANBU that allowed them to stick any point of their body to any part of the trees and flow through forests with their momentum behind them like an ever growing gust of wind in a ship's sails. Or perhaps it was simply the fact that after a lifetime of training ANBU were able to boil one of the most mentally intensive acts of speed and acrobatics into just another form of walking, so second nature that they could manage it without a sweat and even throw in daydreams to boot.

Upon touching down on a branch after an admittedly over-the-top maneuver involving sticking to the underside of a branch with one hand and performing midair somersault a reflexive tightening of muscles from the girl on his back reminded Naruto that unlike him there were some people who were unused to such travel and for a moment he felt guilty that he had been so lost in memories that he had begun running as though he wasn't carrying anyone. "Gomenasi Erza-san, I got a little lost in thought." He said apologetically as he fell into a much safer and gentler pace more suited for an academy student than him.

Erza for her part managed to drive away the incessant pounding of her chest and the throbbing of her head to respond back "Its fine Naruto, if it gets us there faster than its nothing I can't handle."

Naruto smiled and prepared to speed up a tad more but instead halted as he came to the end of the tall trees he was using to leap. Rather than be disappointed however Naruto was thrilled to see that below the hill they were currently on was a large town sitting on the coast. Naruto jumped down from the branch and cushioned his landing with a light pulse of chakra, letting Erza off once he landed "It looks like we're here Erza."

Once Erza gathered her bearings and regained the sense of balance she had lost after a full day of sailing through the trees she looked at the city ahead of them, just beginning to shine with lights as the sun dipped below the nearby mountains. It was a large city and despite being at least five miles away from them occupied almost all of their field of view, save for the mountains and the sky. Hugging the coast of the city were a multitude of ornately decorated buildings that towered above the trees in the nearby forest, each one covered in walls of glass and shining with so much of the oranges, yellows and reds of the setting sun that they almost looked to be on fire. Farther inland from them were much smaller but far more numerous buildings made of what appeared, from a distance, to be normal wood and stone. Despite lacking the glass walls of the towering beach buildings each and every one of the smaller buildings was painted in beautifully vivid colors that seemed to contrast each other so much that they managed to blend together.

"It's amazing, I've never seen anything this beautiful before." Erza said in awe.

"It does look pretty nice" Naruto said quietly. "_It reminds me of some of the port cities back home or the capital, before the bombings started at least…"_

"Ummm Naruto?" Erza asked knocking Naruto from his thoughts.

"Huh oh yea, lets head down there. Even if we walk we should be able to make it there in decent time and then we can… figure something out I guess."

XxX

With a wet squelch Sasuke withdrew the blade from Cole's form and pushed his body forward with his foot, letting Cole fall face first into the slowly spreading pool of blood around them. For the first time since the "fight" if it could even be called that had started Sasuke took a deep calming breath and tried to force the power of his eyes down into submission, noting that it seemed to take longer than he was used to. Though he probably didn't need to resort to using his eyes at all in the fight, since these petty bandits fell prey to a basic genjutsu even a non Uchiha could master, Sasuke had decided to call upon his sharingan at the end for the added terror factor he knew it provided. However the moment he had called upon it he felt his sharingan start pulling from his chakra reserves like a vacuum while at the same time filling his mind with a strange cloud of impulses and desires.

Such things weren't worth looking into now however and with a quick flourish Sasuke flicked most of the dripping blood from his blade and quickly slid it back into its sheath before bending down and picking up _Fire Storm_.

As Sasuke turned from the corpse towards the citizens to make sure they weren't caught in the fight he saw that all of them were paralyzed in fear, with their eyes all widened in terror. Sighing in irritation Sasuke took a step forward to address the crowd only to see them recoil back as if struck, several even falling over each other in fear. Annoyed at their ungratefulness despite the fact that he had saved them Sasuke simply growled slightly and marched up to them faster than they could backpedal before stopping and grabbing a man near the front of the crowd. "I don't have time to deal with your petty fears right now civilian, tell me direction of the largest nearby town and I'll be on my way."

Rather than answer the man simply stared at Sasuke and at the corpses behind him with a crazed stare. "They're… they're dead. I can't believe those bastards are finally gone. We're free we're all finally freeee!"

Sasuke blinked behind his mask at the man's words before he sighed and shoved him back into the crowd and turned towards the remains of the Bastolio gang. Looking back at the cowering people Sasuke shook his head and began walking away until a brown haired child even younger than him pushed his way through the crowd and ran up to him, skidding to a stop and staring up at his mask with tiny hands held in fists at his side and a face scrunched up in determination. Seeing the child's shaking fists Sasuke momentarily questioned whether the runt would try and attack him for some unfathomable reason, but that thought vanished when the boy sharply bowed allowing his head to hide the tears flowing down his face. "Thank you mister scary midget person sir. Those bandits killed my papa last time they came here and we didn't have enough stuff to give them this time and if you hadn't stopped them then they would have killed my mama too." he said sniffling and looking up at Sasuke "I don't care that you killed them the way that you did, those monsters deserved to hurt for the rest of their lives for taking papa and what you did was a really cool…" The boy was brought out of his ranting by Sasuke lifting a finger and flicking him on the forehead with enough force to send him onto his butt.

The boy rubbed his head as he sat and looked at Sasuke in confusion as to why he had done that. Sasuke saw the look of confusion on his face and snorted "Don't start treating me like a hero for turning some weakling bandits into smears on the ground. Just tell me where the next town is so I can be on my way."

The boy sniffled once more and pointed off in a direction Sasuke could only assume was south east based on where he came from the night before. "Thanks" Sasuke said before turning to leave past the rapidly parting crowd. Before he managed to get past the whole crowd he felt small fingers tug on his hand and turned to see the boy he had flicked trying to stop him with all his might. "Pleeeeeeease mister you can't leave so soon like that, you saved us from those bandits this time but what if they come back again? We need you someone to protect us like you did."

Sasuke turned around and lifted his arm up with the child still attached, not struggling in the least to lift him completely off the ground. "Unless you're a citizen of Hi no Kuni I'm not required to protect you." Sasuke said before shaking the boy off his arm and slowly turning around to walk away.

Meanwhile the boy stared at Sasuke's retreating form and felt tears welling up behind his eyes. What's the point of having someone come and save them when the next bandit gang could just come here and attack them again? What's the point of helping them only to leave them for the wolves after he's gone? As he thought about how unfair it was the child's balled up fists started shaking in anger and he finally snapped "What kind of hero shows up and kills people only to leave without a word? You should stay here and help defend us if someone else shows up! What if we need you?! What if they come back and…and KILL MY MOM?!" he shouted while pointing the most accusatory finger he could muster at Sasuke.

The only response he got was Sasuke stopping his march and standing in place on the road as still as a statue.

For a second the boy wondered if he had offended his villages savior or managed to provoke him as the bandits had, but before he could think on it further he screamed in fright as the blade of the bandit leader imbedded itself in the ground just inches in front of him. Staring at the blade that had nearly beheaded him the boy managed to pull his eyes away from it enough to see Sasuke looking over his shoulder at him, locking eyes for a moment before walking away again. "If you want to protect people you care about learn to do it yourself. Relying on the strength of others will only make you too weak to protect people when it really counts."

Without looking back to see how his words had affected the boy, Sasuke walked off in the direction he had been pointed to as the sun before him began to set.

XxX

Night had fallen by the time Naruto and Erza entered the city limits and now that they were close enough to make out details they saw the city was in the midst of a festival of some sort.

Even as far from the center of the city as they were the two of them could see that every building in the city was decorated with hanging lanterns and strings of glowing rainbow stones running between the rooftops of the buildings so densely that the streets were practically drowned in light. Each orb of stone pulsed and shifted its colors in rhythm to the distant music that could be heard emanating from farther in the city and made everything around them glow and shimmer with an almost intoxicating aura.

"C'mon" Naruto walked towards the source of the music "There will be some people in the city center who can help us."

"Just wait a second Naruto and look at all this" Erza's good eye shimmered in wonder as she gestured around her. "This is beyond anything I've ever seen before, it's like all the stars in the sky came down and are dancing in the streets. How can you not be amazed by this?"

Naruto shrugged "It's just some festival, I'll admit it's prettier than most I've seen but it's still just a festival for something. Have you never been to one?"

"Well no, I haven't actually" Erza pouted and looked away "what about you mister fancy, I bet you've been to a million of these then haven't you?"

"Well yea kinda, I never actually went to any of them but I used to work at all the festivals back home so I got used to seeing this kinda stuff." Naruto shrugged before looking back towards the center of town and walking off "It looks like there are some people over this way, hopefully someone will be able to point us to an inn or something."

"Wait, what do you mean you worked at festivals? You're don't look any older than I do." Erza said as she caught up with Naruto.

"If you're older than eleven then I'm not." Naruto said with a shrug as he kept walking, "but I still worked at the festivals whenever I was asked to. Why is that surprising? Is it uncommon for children to work here?"

Erza opened her mouth to answer but closed it after a moment of thought found she didn't have any knowledge of when normal children start working "I'm not sure actually." She said quietly enough that Naruto couldn't hear her.

As Naruto turned around to ask her what she said a large man walking out of a side street bumped into him "Oh sorry about that young man, it's hard to see where you're going in this get up Ya see"

"Don't worry about it sir it's no… what are you wearing?" Naruto said with widened eyes as he fully took in the man's appearance.

He was a huge mountain of man to the two children, standing more than 6 feet tall and had a thick solid torso the bore more resemblance to a barrel than a human. He was dressed in a bizarre combination frilly ruffled clothing and bleached white petticoat but the most striking feature was the huge mask on his face in the form of a smiling golden jester. "Ah you two must not be from around here then eh? This is the traditional getup for the Carnival of Masks here in Akane. It's a popular event so we get a big spike in visitors, which must be why you two are here right?"

The two looked at him with mouths agape for a moment as they tried to formulate a response until Naruto finally spoke up "Actually sir we got lost in the woods a ways away and were hoping to get a lay of the land so we can head home. Do you know where we might find a map of some kind?"

The man looked at the two children with a smile behind his mask as he pointed down towards the center of town where the lights and sounds were most intense, "Down that way you should be able to find a tourist stand of some kind, there should be one for sure in the plaza. They ought to have a map of the city for the two of you, once you find that just head to the train station and you'll be able to get a map of the rail routes and probably get a ride home." He turned back and started head that way himself leaving the children there before shouting back "try to have some fun though you two, carnival only comes once a year after all."

Naruto and Erza stood there for another moment watching as the man walked off before looking at each other and shrugging as they followed after him even deeper into the sparkling lights of the festival.

When they made it deeper into the city the road they were on became crowded with a sea of people all wearing the same colorful outfits and masks that the man before had and each wearing vibrant ceramic masks in every style imaginable, some looking like the faces of comedy and tragedy, others looking like smiling or snarling Onis and others still looking like hook beaked birds. Some were adorned with feathers and stones and several of the more outlandish ones had small lights swirling about them from some obviously magic source.

As the crowd got denser both Naruto and Erza began to start feeling claustrophobic and a moment later the roadway opened into a large plaza filled with vendor stands, and a massive fountain in the center depicting several mermaids holding jugs with water pouring out of them. Despite how large the area was it was still filled to the brim with people all milling about and talking or trying their luck at the games and attractions

Deciding that he had had enough of feeling exposed in the crowd Naruto reached up to his ANBU tattoo and quickly unsealed his mask to try and blend in a little more with the people attending the festival. As he was about to slide his mask onto his head and let the adhesion seals do their job he looked over and saw Erza flicking hers eyes around the crowd in nervousness that mirrored what Naruto was feeling. He put his other hand back up to his tattoo and pulsed his chakra into one of the deeper portions of the seal matrix before a puff of white smoke appeared around him.

Erza looked over at the large cloud in surprise before coughing and waving the smoke away. "Naruto, what the heck was that for?" she asked before the smoke finally cleared and revealed Naruto with a bundle of things in his arms.

"Here, I have a spare mask and uniform if you want it. It will probably help us blend in more with the crowds if we wear masks don't you think?" he said as he slid his mask on and handed her a pile of clothing as well as a mask before pointing a head to a pair of doors next to one of the stalls near them. "If you want to change I think those two doors are bathrooms or something so you can use those."

Erza looked at Naruto with wide eyes for a moment at the abruptness of the gift before looking back down at the clothing he had shoved in her hands. The most bulky things were the vest and the armguards as well as some kind of boots, but the pile also had socks, a pair of pants two arm gloves of some kind and an odd cross between a turtle neck and a tank top. The last and most interesting piece of the pile was the mask which was white in color as opposed to the dark green of Naruto's and rather than being blank held the shape of a feline face with the edges and contours being highlighted in red. With a nod in thanks she headed to the bathrooms and left Naruto alone in his thoughts as he took in his surroundings.

Unfortunately his luck in having a common ground for the spoken language didn't extend to this worlds writing system and rather than the flowing kanji of back home all the signs here were written in strange blocky letters than were being written almost only horizontally. There was only one sign he had seen that had the traditional vertical character format that home did and while he could easily read side to side the absence of anything vertical just made this place feel more foreign. Looking over at what he had told Erza-san were restrooms Naruto really hoped that the little stick figure man and woman on the doors was a trans-universal symbol for restroom considering the words under the two doors looked like gibberish to him.

Naruto didn't have to worry for long though and after a few minutes Erza returned carrying her old dress and wearing the full ANBU uniform he had given her except for the mask. "Thanks for this Naruto it's a world better that my old dress here, the only trouble I had was with these arm sleeve thingies falling off and the mask." She said as she handed said mask back to him "the string on the back must have come off while I was putting it on, I can fix it later if you want but I don't think I can wear it right now.

Naruto held the mask she had handed him in his hand and looked back at her as he felt his eyes soften and face droop in remembrance of the last person to wear that uniform. He soon noticed that he was being silent and remembered what she had said.

He shook his head gently and chuckled before reaching into a small pocket on his vest and handing Erza a roll of white tape "Sorry about that I…" he started saying until he heard his voice get distorted by his mask and saw Erza widen her eyes in mild fear. He pulled the mask from his face and sheepishly smiled as he pocked and tapped the inside of it with his fingers. "eheh my bad triple sorry then, I haven't had to undo the voice alteration seal in a really long time so I kinda forgot to. Annnd I'm sorry about the sleeves, you're supposed to tie em off with tape at the top like mine" he said as he finished fiddling with his mask and pointed to his own arms which had the sleeves held up with a tight band of tape. "Annnnnnd sorry about the mask, you didn't break it or anything its supposed to just attach itself to your face but I kinda forgot to tell you about it, sorry." As Erza tied the glove, sleeve, things like his, Naruto fiddled with her mask for a moment before handing it back to her. "There just slide that on your face and it should work fine, and don't worry I shut of the voice thing."

Erza took the mask back from him and eyed it skeptically as she looked at the inside. There didn't seem to be any kind of mechanism or string and the entire interior appeared to be pure black so it seemed to be devoid of the ink magic Naruto had been using to conjure up things since she had met him. Deciding to try it anyway Erza placed the mask up to her head and let it rest on her face before taking her hands way and widening her eyes in shock as it remained sitting there. That didn't compare to the shock she felt the next instant when the parts of the mask obscuring her vision vanished and from her point of view it seems that she wasn't wearing a mask at all. "Naruto what's the matter with the mask, I… I can't see it" she said as she reached up to touch her face only to feel the mask was still there.

Naruto who had put his own mask back on laughed and spoke again, this time thankfully without the warbled hissing. "That's just a mono directional transparency seal, it makes sure you don't miss anything while you're wearing it but still lets you look cool and menacing." He added the last part while holding up his hands in a child's version of a scary pose. "It also has a bunch of other nice features built into it but the transparency is the coolest one."

Erza continued to move her hands in front of her face in awe before stopping and smiling behind her mask. "This is pretty amazing Naruto but we should probably try and find that visitor center like than man mentioned earlier."

Naruto nodded at her and they both headed deeper into the plaza of stands and people both looking for a sign of some kind of information booth. Unfortunately for Naruto within 15 minutes of their search, and six shops he thought might be information booths turning out to be normal stalls, he could feel Erza starting to look at him in confusion. "Umm Naruto do you want me to take the lead for a bit, I think I may have better luck."

Naruto looked back at her and sighed before stepping back and letting her take the front as she led them around the corner of a row of stalls. "Fine but I'm beginning to think that that guy didn't know what he was talking about. I'd be surprised if there was even one of those booths in this entire…"

"Found it" Erza said happily as she pointed towards a booth ahead of them with a cheerful woman in another smiling jester mask passing out pamphlets and talking animatedly to people who were each just nodding at her and backing away.

Naruto let out a quiet huff of annoyance at her lucky timing as the two walked forward, catching the attention of the woman at the booth. "Well hello youngsters and might I say that those are some of the most wonderful masks I've seen this year, I love the style you chose, very minimalist which is really the best way to go sometimes. Oh listen to me ramble though, you wouldn't be here if you didn't need information so what can I help you with? Are you looking for the costume competition, or perhaps you're interested in the costume ball in the Rialtero plaza, ooh no I'm sure you must be here to take in the artistic finery of the annual museum art gala aren't you" she said leaning closer to the two children with every word he spoke until they were both leaning back from her.

"Actually ma'am we were hoping for a map and some directions to a train station." Naruto said as the man abruptly stood up and sighed.

"Are you sure you two, the carnival only started yesterday. There's still a full week of fun and excitement to be had." She said, gesturing all around them in a grand and flamboyant manner to punctuate her final point.

It was Naruto's turn to sigh and he reached to the flat porcelain of his mask to where the bridge of his nose work be in a habitual attempt to deal with annoyance. "I'm afraid we really must be going, we're lost and need to be getting home so we need a regional map."

"Oh that's terrible, you must have been separated from your family while they were traveling no? I'm so sorry I delayed you." She said as she leaned out from her booth and pointed down an alley way "If you head that way just a bit further you'll get to the train station, they have plenty of maps there that will have all of Fiore on them and the station attendants are amazingly helpful."

Naruto felt his eyes widen at how quickly she had gone from attention grabbing crier to helpful guide and he nodded in thanks as he and Erza headed down the street in the direction the woman had pointed.

After several minutes of navigating the congested streets they came upon a large building spanning three blocks with an ornate clock at its apex and a stream of people heading in and out of it.

Naruto and Erza went up the steps and entered into the large spacious station whose interior was dominated by another massive clock overlooking a ticket booth. Beyond the ticket booth the station roof spanned over several train tracks and held platforms leading to each of them.

"Over there, I see a map" Ezra said, pointing to a large poster on a wall.

Naruto followed her over and looked at the map as he committed the shape of the county. He was thankfully able to at least figure out what city he was in even without being able to read their strange characters by comparing the map topography to what they had seen "Ok we're here" he said correctly pointing to Akane "and it looks like the nearest city is to the west. There's also another line to the east that we could take. To be honest I really have no idea where to head out so long as the population is large, what about you?"

Erza looked at the map in thought as she recalled an old memory before she pointed to a city northwest of them "I'm heading there, Magnolia. A friend of mine mentioned that place a lot so it's the only place I can think of going." She said as Naruto thought about it.

The map wasn't detailed enough to include any way of knowing how large the cities were which left Naruto guessing on what would be a good population center to start his search in. At the very least magnolia looked to be somewhat major as far as towns go since it had three outgoing rail lines. "That sounds fine, let's go see if we can get some pity tickets."

They both made their way into the line for the ticket booth and after a few moments of waiting the ticket teller waved them forward.

"Hello and welcome to Akane central station. What can I do for you two?" he said with a smile on his surprisingly unmasked face, the first they had seen since they made it into town.

"We need to know when the next rain to Magnolia leaves." Naruto said as the teller pulled out a notebook and flipped through it.

"Hmmmmm the next train to Port Hargeon leaves at 8:45 on platform 2 and gets in at 10, then the last one to Magnolia for the night looks to be leaving at 10:15. Can I get you two some tickets?"

"How much are they sir" Erza asked as the man looked at his notebook once more.

"With the connection in Hargeon that will be 2,000 jewels for the both of you" he said happily while Erza felt he face fall.

Naruto cleared his throat and called the man's attention back to him as he spoke "We don't actually have any money sir, we were separated from our parents and are trying to make it back home, is there any way we can get a ride for free?"

The man frowned as he looked down at the two of them "I'm sorry children but we have a policy against free rides especially for minors, I can contact the town guard and have them escort you to magnolia but they might not front the cost of your tickets and it will take a while for them to sort out some of the paper work that goes with this type of thing."

Naruto stepped forward and put his right hand behind his back as he looked straight into the man's eyes. "That would be fine sir if you can write us out two maps to the guard post that would be great, and make sure to stamp them or punch them or something so the guards know we aren't playing a joke on them and won't send us away."

The teller smiled at how civil the boy was being before he quickly whipped up the two maps and used his ticket stamp to prove the children really needed the help. Such a good idea the boy had to put the stamp on it, why it would be terrible is they were turned away from the guards and had to beg for money until they could get a ride home. Oh that's right he needs to make sure to tell the guards where the children's home is, luckily the paper he was using for a map had room on the other side. Better stamp that too just to make sure the guards aren't too mean to these nice children. "Here you are, you should be able to get home quite quickly with these. Have a wonderful day."

Naruto grabbed the pieces of paper with his left hand and walked towards the entrance as Erza followed him until the teller's line of sight was broken. He then pulled his left hand back forward and released the hand sign he had been holding and handed one of the pieces of paper to Erza "Here, now let's go. Our train's already boarding." He said turning around and walking straight for the train tracks and the platforms

Erza looked at the "map" for a moment before she realized it was a stamped and readied ticket that had been fully filled out. "Naruto these are train tickets, why in the world did he put the map on stamped tickets!?"

Naruto merely shrugged as he walked up to a conductor and handed his ticket to him before it was promptly hole punched and he was ushered aboard "He must not have been thinking straight"

Erza too got her ticket stamped and followed after him with a slack jaw while she contemplated the sheer dumb amazing luck that had befallen them.

As the two found themselves some seats Naruto's thoughts were instead focused on thanking his old sensei for making sure he was a well-rounded shinobi.

XxX

Translations:

Mangekyo: Literally meaning kaleidoscope it is a very rare and advanced level of the Sharingan

Nodachi: Particularly large blade of Japanese origin

Ninjato: short sword of Japanese origin with a straight blade rather than a curved one

Genjutsu: the art of illusions, a branch of shinobi techniques that target the senses or thoughts of others

Hi no Kuni: the Land of Fire

Oni: demon of Japanese folklore typically portrayed as a large troll or ogre

Thanks for reading everyone. Please review, and pm me if you want to discuss anything.


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